Friday Links
January 12, 2024
Tabernacle by Steven Searcy
Literature and the Irreducibility of the Human Person
Paul Krause in Voegelin View: Saint Jane Austen
Dwight A. Lindley III on Homer and the Poetry of Forgiveness
Reverent Marvels: Visual Art by Maura H. Harrison
Tabernacle by Steven Searcy
This is a beautiful reflection on the Incarnation. Read the whole thing over at Ekstasis.
Literature and the Irreducibility of the Human Person
Here’s video of the excellent ND Fall Conference Panel, “Literature and the Irreducibility of the Human Person,” with J. C. Scharl, Joshua Hren, and Paul Pastor, and James Matthew Wilson leading off the discussion.
Paul Krause in Voegelin View: Saint Jane Austen
Modern interpreters of Austen are often clouded by their own hatred of Christianity, the religion that Austen was raised in and remained a devout member of until her death. Rather than concern themselves with the theology of eros, love, that runs through Austen’s novels, contemporary Austenian critics prefer to approve or disapprove Austen’s novels and heroines on feminist grounds. As Margaret Drabble writes concerning the conclusion of Emma, “The atmosphere of Highbury—parochial, timid, inward-looking, change-resisting—has won.” Au contraire.
Dwight A. Lindley III on Homer and the Poetry of Forgiveness
. . . forgiveness narrates the other not in terms of character-as-destiny, but character-in-God. The Scriptures set forth God as both origin and end of the person, but also as the form of the person’s perfection: in Heaven, “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is,” and sanctification is the process of attaining that goal, however partially, in this life (1 John 3:2). In turning from an offender’s past to his or her future, the forgiver is opening a space, a trajectory, of becoming toward God. And this is, to a significant extent, a Christian way of imagining character and plot.
Reverent Marvels: Visual Art by Maura H. Harrison
Borrowing a phrase from Julian of Norwich, I think it is important that “one should reverently marvel and humbly endure, ever delighting in God.” As a photographer, this idea directs my eye. Everywhere I look, I challenge myself to notice the beauty and marvels of God's natural world. In finding them, I hope to capture that beauty in a photograph so that I can share God’s marvels with others.
